NLP Principles & the difference

NLP Principles & the difference – a brief overview!

We take in around 4 billion pieces of information every second, and of that information you’re only consciously aware of approximately 0.0005% of it! For example, are you aware of the feel of your clothing against the skin on your back? Or the temperature of your left foot? We bet you weren’t until we just mentioned it!

Information comes in to our first access area and is then deleted, distorted and generalised before being filtered further based on our own values, beliefs, language, memories and meta programs.

As a result of this we will all have our own unique maps of the world based around our individual experiences.

Do you remember having dinner last night? How do you remember it? Do you see a picture in your mind, or are there smells or tastes? Were there sounds? Perhaps you can hear a radio or music playing? To remember an event your mind uses pictures, sounds, feelings, tastes, smells and words. These perceptions of the outside world are called ‘internal representations‘. Your perceptions are what you consider to be ‘real’ or in other words, your reality.

If you had dinner with someone else it may be that what they remember about the dinner is different from you, based on their own unique filters and internal representation system. They may remember more about the sounds and smells whereas you may remember more about the visual aspects.

Have you ever watched a TV programme with some friends; you loved it, Jane thought it was terrible and Bob was completely indifferent?! How can it be that the three of you sat in the same room, in the same house, on the same sofa, watching the same TV programme, at the same time and yet you all had different opinions and reactions?!

It’s simple. You all filtered the information differently through your own set of values and beliefs. You all perceived the TV programme from different internal perspectives, hence your differing behaviours and reactions. You each have your very own unique maps and perceptions of the world around you.

Now interestingly, you can adjust your filters and therefore your experience and therefore your behaviour!

How we think about things (Neuro), how we communicate both verbally and non-verbally (Linguistic) and how we react and behave as a result of external and internal stimuli (Programming) are all linked and through using NLP we can reprogram less useful behaviours to new and more beneficial responses that create the change we want.

For example, let’s say Jim has gone off travelling, exploring the world.Each day he has to set his alarm to ensure he’s up in time to go off on his next exciting adventure. He decides to set one of his favourite songs to wake him up, ‘Three Little Birds’ by Bob Marley. Every morning he hears the distinct opening notes and he’s instantly filled with excitement and happiness and springs up ready for the day ahead. He’s running a program that associates with the song ‘Three Little Birds’.

Six months later, Jim is back home and it’s time to get a job. He takes the first job he can get, because he needs to earn some money. Turns out, the job is highly demanding, the people he works with are highly stressed and the location is difficult to get to. After a week, the opening notes to his favourite song waking him up in the morning now create feelings of dread and disdain. Jim has now changed his program.

NLP gives you lots of tools and techniques that allow you to reprogram less useful responses such as anxiety, fear and anger to new and more beneficial responses. If your friend saw a spider and their reaction and behaviour was one of fear, how would it be if instead they could reprogram their behaviour to be calm and indifferent?

NLP empowers you to make these changes and to create the positive outcomes that you DO want!